


I Remember What It Was Like When...

by Dikhotomia



Series: Whumptober 2k19: FE3H Edition [29]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Day 29 Numb, Gen, Kind of an exploration of Byleth taking over the church, after she's been in rule for a while and then some, short and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: "You never know what you have until you lose it," she says one day in response to a knight's errant complaint. Halting in their walk around the monastery. He blinks at her, startled and she smiles, quiet, gentle, reminding herself of a woman she's long since lost.And it just reminds her of everyone she's lost, all the faces she used to know and love gone."ORByleth watches while the world leaves her behind





	I Remember What It Was Like When...

Things change around her, the church breaking down and rebuilding as days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years and she remains stagnant in the middle of it all. The one thing that is ever present, never changing. She goes by a different name, claims to be a descendant of herself. Again and again and again. Each new name a new personality, a new story.

(_She never wanted this_-)

The numbness sets in with the changes, sharper teeth, pointed ears. The ache of it in the beginning becoming something forgotten about a month in. She doesn't smile as full anymore, lips barely parting over teeth. Wears her hair in new way to hide the way her ears have changed.

She can't feel the tips of her fingers anymore and she thinks it might be because of it. Can't feel the toes she slides into boots each morning, but she's learned to function anyway. She has to pretend to feel the emotions she once had a grasp on, smiles and frowns and sympathy. It's easier to fake now, but she misses the sensations they bring.

(_It's not entirely gone, but the years and the loneliness has eroded her_-)

"You never know what you have until you lose it," she says one day in response to a knight's errant complaint. Halting in their walk around the monastery. He blinks at her, startled and she smiles, quiet, gentle, reminding herself of a woman she's long since lost.

And it just reminds her of everyone she's lost, all the faces she used to know and love gone.

The numbness is a blessing.

(_She hates it._)

The world moves on and Byleth watches it change, learns the new leaders and makes peace when she needs to. She doesn't recognize names anymore, the old ones she knew from the past written along the pages of the history books. Just like her, the Professor whose face no one remembers, but whose actions are taught in the very academy she still keeps alive.

She wonders if this was how Rhea felt, living among but apart from everyone all the time. Playing the part of the Archbishop, guiding gentle and patient. She's learned from the other's mistakes, learned from the Emperor whose very memory elicits a distant pain through the hollow center of her. She keeps peace without violence, saving that for only the most extreme of cases.

The world moves on and becomes something unrecognizable and Byleth fades into the background of it. The church is forgotten as people find different things to worship, names in those same history books becoming more than just figures, legends...Gods.

The world moves on and Byleth disappears into the chaos of it, her newfound freedom offering her a chance to explore she had begun to covet.

She never settles again.


End file.
